


Even If It Ends, You'll See Him Again

by orphan_account



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Ancient Greece, Barista Niall Horan, Chaos Theory, Dark Academia, Fluff, Friendship, Grad Student Liam, Immortal Harry, Languages and Linguistics, London, Magical Realism, Physics, Professor Louis Tomlinson, Professor Zayn Malik, Science, Supernatural Elements, Winter, black holes!, plato puns!, scientific debates, the space time continum!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:42:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24932464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Fate looks up, into the eyes of the physics professor he had met a few weeks ago, the one who’s life he could not see. He thought of the way black holes warp space time so that they cannot be seen until an object is pulled into their gravitational field and cannot escape. He sees him again, in coffee shops late at night, and curled up on a couch in early morning light.But even Fate is pulled farther and farther into his orbit, the universe goes on.And while no one will believe you have lived a thousand lifetimes and died a thousand deaths, every man believes a song.Where Fate is a man chasing butterflies and no matter how much he questions his role in the universe, he cannot bring himself to break free of it, and Louis' eternal cycle of birth and decay and death has driven him to the edge of what is understood about the universe, but not far enough to understand himself.
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by the prompts:  
> "I know you're trying to be threatening and all serious saying 'You can't outrun fate', but I have to laugh. You're not fate, much less mine. I've met Fate and they happen to find running undignified." and  
> "You live in a world where the first words your soulmate says to you appear on your skin. Your words are "Hey you dropped your phone." However, you are a baker in Ancient Greece, and have no idea what a phone is."  
> from @writing-prompt-s on tumblr but it has become distinctly none of those things. 
> 
> Most of the physics info comes from Steven Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" and various google searches. There are a few instances where I give a fictional character credit for something a real person has done, idk just though I'd mention that in case you didn't realize. I tried my best to make the science accurate, but I'm not a physicist, and obviously the topics are simpler than what an actual physicist at this level would be working on. At a certain point the science stops being real, because this is a work of fiction based on fictional premises.

**part one.**

**[a tuesday in late november: london, england]**

_On a rainy day on the corner of a street tucked away in a quiet part of London there is a coffee shop. Its walls are filled with local artists for sale, its floor is crammed with mismatched tables, chairs and couches. The menu is limited, but the coffee is good and hot and the muffins are always fresh baked._

_Sitting in an armchair alone in the far back is a man. He is wearing shiny leather shoes, and a half buttoned cream colored silk shirt tucked into dark green trousers that complement his eyes. A tan pea coat is folded over one armrest, his left arm hangs lazily off the other. His right arm holds a book up to his face. His legs are crossed, right over left. He is the first thing people have noticed today when they walk into the shop. He sits still, does not turn the page, but looks intensely at the contents of the book._

_At exactly 8:15 a woman walks into the shop and the man looks up. She goes to the counter, orders a coffee to-go, and tells the barista her name is Katrina. The man in the chair does not return to his reading but moves the elbow of the arm holding the book to rest on the arm rest holding his pea coat. The barista pushes the woman’s order towards her on the counter at the same time a man across the street notices the cafe and begins to head towards it to get out of the rain. His name is Alex Fisher. Katrina walks away from the counter as Alex Fisher ducks under the awning over the door. She pulls the door open. The man in the armchair drops his book. Katrina turns around, startled. Alex Fisher runs smack into her._

_In three years they will have a child named Jen Fisher, who will grow up to develop a mode of gene modification that will allow science to wipe rapidly mutating diseases like the flu off the map. However, the man in the armchair does not care about Jen Fisher. He is Fate, and he has done his job, so he puts on his pea coat, tucks the book into a pocket, and walks past Alex and Jen as he steps out, turning the collar of the coat up against the wind._

_Meanwhile, in a different coffee shop in a much busier part of London another man is tampering with fate as well, though he is not so successful._

“NIALLER” yells an over enthusiastic voice in a strikingly northern accent, “Look who I’ve brought with me today!” 

“Who, mate?” 

“Amanda Tate!” 

“Am I supposed to know who that is?” 

“Of course!” 

“Well I don’t”

“That girl you were chatting up at the pub the other night!” 

Niall gives the man an exasperated look. 

“I absolutely do not remember her.”

“Well you should” responds the northerner, “She’s fit, and smart, and knows how to dress. What more could you need in a woman?”

“What on earth do you know about things you need in a woman mate?”

“Hey, I’ve lived a long life, you don’t know the things I get up to.”

“You’re 26” 

“Yeah, but 26 what? Units are important.” 

“Louis.”

“Yeah?”

“Shut up and order”

“You aren’t any fun, me and Amanda want medium lattes, extra cinnamon.” 

The Irishman taps in the order and relays it to the other person behind the counter.

“How do you know Amanda anyways?” Niall glances over to where girl with an afro full of tight curls is sitting, eyes focused on her phone.

“She’s a post-grad at UCL” 

“There are lots of post-grads at UCL” 

“Well there’s only one you were chatting up the other night!”

“Your lattes are at the other counter, menace.” 

“For the record, I think you’d be great together.”

“Noted, now get out of my sight.”

Louis grins cheekily at Niall and shuffles down the counter to grab the lattes, then walks over to the girl, sitting at a table near the window. 

He questions her about her dissertation, and she asks about his research, clearly enthused to be having a conversation with such a well renowned professor. On three separate occasions he brings up his “friend Niall over at the counter” in situations that are barely related to the topic at hand. However, Amanda does not think much of it, because the two have never met. Louis has confused her with someone else. 

A half an hour later, their conversation has just delved into the theory of the superfluid blackhole, when one Zayn Malik walks into the coffee shop. He is wearing grey slacks, and a black button up under a tailored tweed jacket with glasses tucked into the breast pocket and a leather satchel hung off his shoulders. He and Louis are the backbone of the University College London physics department, and fundamental elements of the quantum physics conversation world-wide. However, they are to each other what disorder is to chaos. 

Zayn is chaos. Almost too brilliant to understand, but at his base he is governed by his own rules and desires. He is almost always put together, has his notes in order, and is caught up on the latest research. He is respected in the community, and notably teaches the most difficult class at UCL- Intro to Quantum Physics. 

It’s a required class for graduate students on the topic, and despite what the name may lead you to believe, the passing rate for the first attempt is about 15%. He teaches understanding of the universe, and how to look past conventional human understandings of the laws of physics to uncover things beyond normal human comprehension. He is a genius, no doubt, but he must understand the universe in order to deconstruct it. Louis has no such qualms.

Louis is disorder in its purest form- unexplainable, ungoverned, and generally unsupported by mathematics. He shows up late, gave up on using a syllabus two years ago, and rarely dresses formally- a trait to which he can attribute how often he is mistaken for a student by laypersons. But he is a special kind of brilliant. He can dissect difficult complex topics down to levels that an undergrad taking his class for fun could understand. He can connect seemingly unrelated laws and theories and use them to prove something else. He always carries a pen, but rarely paper, so he is frequently seen writing scrawled over his hand, his clothes, or someone else's furniture. 

Louis has also never been described as shy, and as such Zayn is suprised, but not shocked when he exclaims “ZAYNN!” quite loudly across the coffee shop. 

Zayn looks up and nods his head at Louis awkwardly before rushing to the counter, eager to escape the attention. He orders a black coffee from Niall, who tells him about the girl Louis’ with and how he’s sure he hasn’t seen her before in his life. 

Zayn chuckles and glances over at the pair, just in time for Louis to look up and corral him into the conversation. He’s never been one to take no for an answer. 

“Zayyn” Louis drawls, “this is Amanda, I think she’s in your ITQP class”

Amanda looks up at that, surprised, “How did you know? I don’t think I said.”

“You mentioned you were a bit disappointed in having to retake one of your classes.” Louis grins, “There’s only one class on campus that a student such as yourself would be only a little disappointed at having to retake.” 

“Alright, that’s fair enough I suppose. Have you taken the class?”

“I’ve sat in on a few lectures, and Zayn here has run a few concepts by me, but no I’ve never taken it. I’m sure I would fail if I tried and how embarrassing would that be.”

“Don’t pretend that’s an emotion you feel Tommo.” Zayn interjects, “I think the class would be wasted on you anyways. You don’t even take universal truths to be fact.”

“Like the theory that the 2nd law of thermodynamics isn’t always true!” Amanda exclaims, “Brilliant stuff”. 

“Thanks love”

The conversation evolves into a discussion of entropy and event horizons, before Amanda and Zayn have got to get to class, and Louis ought to be in his office anyways. They walk off together as Zayn elaborates on a discussion he had led the other day, about looking beyond what exists to determine what doesn’t, and Amanda questions him on applying that theory to real life.

Louis tunes them out, and focuses on the way the birds sit on the powerlines, and wonders what reasons a bird would have to sit on one part of the powerline over another. He thinks about all the birds he has seen, and how- even before powerlines, they always seemed to find the perfect place to rest. 

**part two.**

_Fate sat at the back of the empty lecture hall. Sunlight filtered in through the windows, illuminating the dust that danced through the air. It came to rest on polished wooden tables, stuffed plush chairs that had seen better days, ear length brown curls and pale skin. His eyes were closed, head tilted back, chair angled towards the windows. The room was silent except for quiet breathing and Fate was at peace._

_In his head it was quiet. He could feel the warm sunlight on his face, and a slight draft in the room. He did not think about the present, or the future, this was not the time for that, he had done his work for the day. Instead, he thought of the way the world turned, and the forces at work to make it so. He thought about his own existence, how he did not understand the forces that commanded it. Fate understood so much. He knew why things had come to pass, he had brought about tragedy and comedy and love. He just didn’t understand why. He did not know who gave him the knowledge, or if perhaps no one did. Fate did not know who gave him his purpose, and for centuries he had not questioned it. But he questioned it now._

_So Fate sat, and he thought, and he did not think, until the door to the lecture hall burst open and three figures entered, arguing energetically._

“All I’m saying is that we could think about what the world would look like if force carrying particles obeyed the exclusion principle!”

“Well we could Louis,” Zayn snarked, “But we know for a fact that they don’t, and because we know that there would never be anyway to prove your theory or what came of it correct.”

“Aren’t you the one who is always going on about expanding the limits of what we know?” Amanda chips in. 

“Oh don’t you take his side, what Louis is suggesting is like working in the opposite direction of science. The point of this class is to take what we know and expand it, not to take what we know and completely disregard it for the sake of the argument.”

“Well I think it has potential, and I think you are a small-minded hypocrite.” Louis snarks. 

The three walk towards the lectern at the front of the room, and Amanda drops her stuff in a chair near the front. Fate has opened his eyes, and smiles at her when she looks up at him.

“Hey, you’re Harry, right?” Amanda asks.

Fate likes to stay in the background of the real world, and he feels slightly uncomfortable being called out in front of the three.

“Yes, and you’re Amanda?” he questions. He knows her name. He also knows that in a few years time she will make a discovery that will be largely ignored for her lifetime until a physicist in Massachusetts discovers her findings by accident and combines them with technology that does not yet exist to change the energy industry forever. The system is called the Tate Positron Field, but she won’t live to see it. Unless there is an afterlife, Fate supposes, but he doesn't know anything about that and likely never will.

“Yeah, are you a post- grad too? I haven’t seen you around?”

“No, I’m just auditing the class, purely for my own knowledge.”

At this the two professors look up.

“Not many people stay on past week three if they aren’t in it for the credit.” Zayn remarks, “What did you say your name was?”

“Harry” 

“Right, how’s it been treating you?”

“It’s interesting, really all about finding new questions to answer isn’t it?”

“Exactly, Harry” The other man interjects, “And sometimes new questions need to be asked about the things that we already think we know.” Louis looks at Zayn pointedly.

“You absolute menace,” Zayn says, then turns back to Fate, “ Do you have any opinions on examining force carrying particles as though they follow the exclusion principle even though it has been well and thoroughly proven that they don’t, and eventually that research would lead to a dead end because you would by working with physics that doesn’t exist and at a certain point the mathematics would no longer support it.”

“Well you could always come up with new math.”

“Precisely” Louis interjects, “Both of your students have learned a massive amount in this class and clearly YOU” He looks pointedly at Zayn, “Do not take your own advice.”

“Besides,” Harry continues, “There are exceptions to every rule, most just haven’t been found yet.” 

The other man turns and gives Fate an inquisitive look, before turning to Zayn, smirking, and walking back up the steps of the lecture hall and out the way he came.

It is during this time that Fate comes to realize something. He has never seen that man before in his life. Fate’s actions were slow moving forces, and people rarely interacted with him more than once in their life, but he came to everyone once. He knew that. Every human life served a purpose in some way- large or small, and Fate for better or worse remembered them all. Except him. For all he had Fate could not think of the man’s name, or his future, or the impact he would have on the world.

The last words Fate had spoken echoed in his ears. The exception to the rule. He had been thinking of himself when he said it, he who did not understand his own existence. But maybe that man was the exception to his rules.

Students began pouring in through the doors to the hall, but Fate called out to Amanda one last time.

“Who was that?”

She looked up at him and snorted, “Damn, you really are auditing. That was Louis Tomlinson, he’s like a physics god.”

Class began, and as Professor Malik dove into a discussion on truth versus fact in relation to quantum physics, Fate’s mind wandered off to the blue-eyed man he had assumed was a student. He thought back, tried to recall every face he had come across, or seen in his book in the last 30 years. He came up blank.

Fate though back farther, tried to recall of he had ever seen a face he had not recognized. He though back centuries, to the beginning of his time on this earth, and he could not recall ever feeling blind to the path of a human being. That was his purpose, protect the strings that tied the human path together. But this man had no strings. And he was a question without an answer, one that Fate desperately wanted to find.

**part three.**

Louis walked back towards his office. The lecture hall Zayn taught ITQP wasn’t near the physics department for some reason, so he had to step outside. The wind and rain had chased away the sun, but he barely noticed it over the thoughts bouncing around inside his head.

 _There are exceptions to every rule._ That’s not such a bold generalization, but when applied to physics? Exceptions to the rules are the bane of a physicist’s existence. What was the point of having rules if there were exceptions to them? Where do you draw that line? But the man, Harry, had said that with such confidence. Louis didn’t know his background, perhaps he didn’t know enough about physics to make such an insight, but Louis couldn’t help feeling called out.

After all, he was an exception to one of the most well-regarded rules of all- that people died, and lives ended, and life was short. He did die, Louis supposed, but then he was born again. Not in a re-incarnation sort of a way, he always grew up to look the same, and as he grew up again the memories and knowledge of his past lives would come back to him.

He always had different parents, of course, and they always named him different things. But he remained the same. All he wanted to know was why. He had spent lifetimes trying to understand. He had studied different things, he had walked with the greatest minds, but he never could understand his own.

All scientific laws dictated him impossible. It was as if Plato’s theory that the soul was eternal and Aristotle’s theory that the soul and body were one and the same were correct in tandem. Louis was a paradox, an impossibility. He didn’t like to think about it too much, as it never made him feel better. But the way Harry had spoken reverberated in his mind. _There are exceptions to every rule._ As if he knew it was true.

Louis pulled a key from his back pocket and unlocked the door to his office. It was small, but it had big windows and a comfortable armchair in the corner he had spent many a night curled up in. His sat desk cluttered in the middle of the room, stacked with notebooks and loose-leaf paper. A kettle and a box of tea rested on the corner; a forgotten mug sat on the dusty windowsill near a cracked glass lamp that had more personality than function. The walls were lined with bookshelves, full of textbooks, and research, and binders. A rolling blackboard was pushed against one wall.

He made sure the scribbles were recorded somewhere else, the used a rag to erase its contents, then turned the chair opposite his desk, usually used during office hours, to face the empty board.

Louis sat and regarded the blank space. _There are exceptions to every rule._ He considered his conversation with Zayn. _Working in the opposite direction of science._ Maybe there was a flaw in considering science to be literal. He began to write every law and theory and formula he knew about integer spin, force-carrying particles, and the exclusion principle. He considered waves, and energy, and how they could exist as matter. It was simple, fundamentally, but also impossible. Why didn’t the exclusion principle apply? Louis would start there.

Louis left his office 7 hours later. The sun had long since set, and the wind had picked up significantly. It was too late in the season for Louis to leave his coat at home, but he had done it anyways. He turned in the direction of his flat and started walking home.


	2. Chapter 2

**part one.**

**[wednesday]**

_Fate awoke at seven am to the faint patter of rain and the grey light of a stormy morning. He lay in the sheets for a moment, curls splayed across the pillow, skin seemingly tan in compared to the white of his sheets. The man was overcome by a sense of calm, and in that moment he could not remember the turmoil that had plagued him the night before._

_His day began in earnest an hour later when he left his flat, pea coat covering a pale blue silk shirt and sharp black trousers. The rain felt good on his face and wound his curls together tighter. On the corner of the street a dog was tied to a bit of iron railing, owner nowhere to be seen. Fate knew that he was in the shop, but no one was around to stop him as he untied the dog and watched as he ran into the street and Fate walked away. A car swerved to avoid the dog and ran into the very fence the dog had been tied to. The dog’s owner came out of the shop and ran after his dog while the shop owner rushed to the person in the car. It was a young woman who had plans to attend Oxford the next fall. She suffered a concussion that would prevent her from maintaining the GPA that she needed to maintain her conditional acceptance. By the time the ambulance was called, Fate was half a block away._

_He did not understand how this was meant to protect the future but was afraid of what would happen if he did not. Fate believed this fear to be his greatest weakness but lacked the strength to resist. So Fate rushed on, to step on other butterflies, and think about the things he was too cowardly to change._

**part two.**

There was something scratching the back of Louis’ mind as he wandered back halls of the library. This floor was underground, and poorly lit as it was frequented by neither readers nor researchers. The air was cool and dry, likely filtered to prevent the books from mildew, but the dim, wavering lights and hum of electricity gave the space the feeling of a well-kept tomb.

Louis walked with his hands held together behind his back, as he ran a critical eye over the dusty spines that were crammed onto the shelves. They were mostly proofs or notes from scientists and thinkers of the past with small renown, important enough to be kept but not remembered. He was looking for a volume by one Cillian J. Thomas, who had been essential to the research into what would later become know as Bosons, due to the work of [Satyendra Nath Bose](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyendra_Nath_Bose). Cillian’s work had been largely insignificant in comparison, but what Louis was trying to remember was a very specific pattern of events that had been observed and formulized by Thomas.

Louis was trying to remember these notes, because he and Cillian were one and the same person, and these notes were just Louis’ notes a century ago. Nonetheless, the information sat in his mind just a fingertip out of reach, and Louis could not help but think this information was important in some small but essential way. After all, his accolades in the physics field were all down to the drive to understand how the universe could have allowed a breach in protocol quite so massive as his existence seemed to be. Louis resented the idea that it was unexplainable, as any good scientist would, instead choosing to believe that the science simply had not been discovered. As such, he had made it his lives mission to work it out.

This section of the library was not arranged in any sort of rational system, probably due to the fact that many of the volumes in its collection were want for identification of any sort. Louis had a fear that his would be among them and dreaded the possibility of having to sift through every unnamed tome. However, half an hour into his search he came across his old notebook- bound in brown butcher paper and wrinkled with coffee stains and cigarette ash.

The notes were in pen ink, and as disorderly as Louis’ to this day. As these books could not leave the library Louis took out his own notebook- a well made spiral bound, still stained- and began to transcribe the observations he had made two lifetimes ago. The work was limited in some aspect, naive to discoveries and presumptions that had been made since. He could feel his own anguish in these pages, a long burning desperation to belong to something. He remembered his isolation, decades where he refused to participate in the world because he was afraid of the sorrow that always followed joy.

More than anything Louis dreaded the early years of his life where his age came back to him. His childhood ruined before he could really understand what it meant, once again, with nightmares, and flashing lights, and faces painted red with anguish and joy and emotions his new body had yet to experience. The dreams always came before the history, so for every new spring Louis experienced a cold winter storm, and then the soft summer breeze of his first life would come to remind him he had done all this before.

Louis was born the first time in Athens, Greece in 456 BCE. His mother had been a baker, and he had worked alongside her in his youth, and had studied music and poetry. He lived out his days during the golden era of Athens as a bard, and that was the last time in his life he had truly felt content. He had then been named Alecto, which means ceaseless. Perhaps he ought still to be called Alecto, given that he has not yet ceased.

The bard Alecto had spent his days in the sun, crafting long forgotten melodies on the lyre, singing about the days of the people around him. He had been a romantic then, had seen the beauty in everything. He had led a short simple life and died a short simple death.

The lives that followed were nothing like his first. By the time he had, in his youth become inundated with the melodies and memories of Alecto he had been thrust into the Greek wars of old that crumbled empires, and souls.

By one name or another Louis has fought in many wars since, but he has never been able to escape the carnage of his first. It is the first thing he always remembers- the horrors his own hands have created, and all the horrors since, before he remembers his early days, and their melodies. Some lifetimes it is what keeps him sane, for while you cannot tell a soul you have lived a thousand lifetimes, and died a thousand deaths, everyman believes a song.

It is a song that Louis hums as he finishes transcribing Cillian’s notes and ascends the stairs to the rest of the library. It is early still, only a few students sit hunched over tables laden with laptops, books, and caffeine in various forms. He recognizes Amanda, her hair covered today with a colorful pattered head scarf, which is perhaps the only reason he notices her at all. She is sitting on a long table at the end of the library with two men, one with pale skin and a military style haircut, the other darker with a buzzed head. The three are leaning over something and appear to be engaged in a debate. Louis hopes it is about physics, he loves people who debate about physics.

With a smile on his face Louis leaves the library to walk back to his office. The weather is damp, and dark clouds block out the sun, but today he is wearing a layered denim jacket that keeps out the cold. The campus is quiet, the few people out seem almost subdued by the intensity of the sky. It is a warning, perhaps, of what is to come.

**part three.**

Back in his office, Louis throws his jacket over the back of the chair behind his desk and checks the water level in the kettle, which he turns on before he sets about fixing the tea bag and mug, then pouring in milk from the fridge in the small kitchen shared by the physics department. He settles into his armchair with his mug in hand one hand and his notebook in another.

What he had transcribed from Cillian’s work was a complex formula that attempted to observe the mathematical function of electrons according to the known rules of the universe. This was before Einstein’s theory of relativity, and before the knowledge that quantum mechanics and what is now known as relativity do not follow the same rules. Louis had thought of it because he felt that since the two theories were paradoxical, and the phenomena he wanted to understand was paradoxical that they might somehow be connected.

Of course, he now had to go around assuming that things that are generally accepted to be fact were incorrect, and thus he felt Cillian’s incorrect mathematical model might be helpful. It was not particularly- a bit too far off the mark, but it was another thing to check of the list.

Perhaps the key was time. He was, after all, an anomaly out of time. Or perhaps his atoms just kept rearranging themselves in the same way every time, some perfect fit that could not bear to part. But that isn’t how atoms work, and doesn’t explain the aging.

Louis crossed the room to the chalkboard and scribbled something down, sipped his tea, scribbled something else. He thumbed across binders, found and old formula, wrote a lightly different version of it on the board, made more tea, sipped it. He continued on like this until his fingers were white and a chalk mark dusted his cheek bone. The board was filled with new formulas and the old ones were recorded in his notebook, a veritable method for checking your work Louis had discovered in the early 18th century. The sky had grown darker, and the position of the sun could not be seen when a knock sounded on the door.

“Door’s open”

“Louis” Zayn remarked, peaking his head into the dusty room, “How long have you been here?”

“Dunno, working on some stuff.”

“Clearly, now come on, let’s get dinner.”

Louis grumbled but put down his pen and marked where he had left off recording. He grabbed his jacket and turned off the light before following Zayn down the now dark hallway.

The storm had not yet broken, so the pair walked a few blocks to The Republic of Plate-o, a small family owned eatery that the small group that Louis and Zayn had acquiesced during their time at UCL ate at so frequently they were invited to Christmas dinner.

The establishment was decently busy, the hum of conversation and laughter blended into the soft jazz music that played over the speakers. The lighting was warm and cast overlapping shadows on the brick walls and potted trees that grew in the corners. Wooden tables and mismatched chairs crowded the middle, over which string lights hung patio style from an iron lattice attached to the ceiling. Two walls were lined with circular booths, one was interrupted by brick archways that led into a terrace that was enclosed in glass like a greenhouse, and the last wall held a small corner bar, a little stage, and the entrance to the kitchen.

Louis and Zayn headed immediately to their usual booth in a far corner near the terrace that would fill with warm light on sunny afternoons. Today it was only lit by a dim lightbulb that hummed slightly in the corner, but it was enough to recognize their friends Niall and Charita already eating.

“Hey guys” Zayn said as he slid into the booth next to Niall, “I see you’ve started without us?”

“Can never be sure if you will show up at a reasonable hour” Niall responded between bites of spaghetti.

“I resent that”

“Louis please, if you had your way, you’d still be in your office inhaling chalk.”

“Speaking of chalk,” Charita added as she gestured to Louis’ cheek, “I think you’ve got some right there, unless you’ve begun resorting to alternative methods to uncovering the secrets of the universe.”

Louis brushed the chalk off and smirked “Wouldn’t you like to know hmm, add some spice to that otherwise dreary existence you’ve been cultivating.”

“Piss off you, at least people read what I write.”

“People read what I write” Louis scoffed, “They’d have to nominate me for a Nobel prize”

Niall rolled his eyes “Damn Lou, they did what? I hadn’t heard, you’ve never mentioned that before!”

“Oho” Zayn slung his arm around Niall’s shoulder, “Don’t tell me you haven’t heard the thrilling tale, legendary discovery, and ultimate demise of the theorem to end all theorems. Physics will never be the same, what decay could end the timeless love affair between our Tommo and the quantum realm, star-crossed lovers who don’t believe in stars-”

“I believe in stars”

“-or time for that matter, ne-er to be seen in the light of day, nor recognized by the world. But love persists, and our tragic hero marches on, to discover other phenomena and actually get the Nobel prize next time.”

Louis bangs his head on the table. “Why must you kick a man when he’s down.”

“Ahh listen to the man,” Charita sighs, “broken hearted”

“Don’t worry Lou,” Niall adds, “Plenty of fishes in the ocean.”

“Wont the three of you let this die! This happened a year ago I think it’s perfectly valid to be slightly miffed about not getting a Nobel prize. Also, I believe in stars Zayn.”

“Really, because I seen to remember last month you were talking about how since what we perceive as stars is just light traveling across the fabric of space-time and the fabric of space-time is warped by the combined mass and energy of the stars the stars were really out of time and therefore only the human way of perceiving the existence of finite time and space in a distorted universe.”

“Yeah but I was drunk, I am -I’ll have you know- a world renowned physicist who acknowledges the validity of the physical observations and proofs of science.”

“Well personally,” Niall injects, “Charita and I think the earth is flat, and can’t be convinced otherwise.”

“Indeed,” Charita nods, “If space time is made of fabric, then what is earth but a patch?”

Niall snickers, “We’ve solved it! Do you think we will get a prize?"

Zayn nods, “I’d give you a gold star”

“Nice”

Just then a waiter arrives with food they hadn’t ordered (a side-affect of Christmas dinner) and Zayn and Louis tuck into their meals. Niall gets up and retrieves a bottle of wine and some glasses from the bar, and the four carry on discussing life, the universe, and all the funny little bits in between.


	3. Chapter 3

**part one.**

**[a wednesday in early december]**

_As a rule, Fate does not run. In fact, one of the basic premises of fate as a human concept was that it was about being in the right place at the right time. So, given that Fate was fate, he should never be in a rush to get anywhere, as he was always exactly where he was supposed to be._

_Except tonight, apparently, as Fate has missed the last tube that travels from downtown London to his apartment, and it is snowing. The man consults his book. As he thought, he had done everything that he needed to do today, each last connection made or missed. So why the tube? He likes to think that if he wasn’t supposed to get on it the book would have informed him as such. Fate has no connections; he isn’t supposed to miss them._

_Miffed and cold, Fate turns on his heel and walks in the direction of a coffee shop he is almost certain is open late. As he approaches, soft light from inside is cast through the windows onto the snow, and he can see the dance of the snowflakes as they fall sparkling to the ground._

_Inside it is warm, and Christmas music plays over the speakers. The room is almost empty, save for the waiter and three people gesticulating wildly at each other across a table in the back. He pays them little mind and approaches the front. The blonde barista facing away from Fate has his nose in a book and has not noticed Fates presence. Well, people rarely do. Fate clears his throat._

_“Hi, um, could I get a hot chocolate?”_

_“Sure thing mate,” says the barista. He sounds surprisingly Irish. “That’ll be three pounds, can I get a name.”_

_“Harry,” Fate says, and hands over his credit card._

_“Alright Harry that’ll just be a moment.”_

_It is then that one of the people at a table in the back looks up. It is Amanda Tate, from Professor Malik’s ITQP class. She perks up and jostles one of the men sitting next to her, before getting out of her seat and walking towards the register, where Fate waits for his hot chocolate._

“Hey,” she says cheerfully, “Harry, right? From ITQP?”

“That’s me.”

“I’m actually here with a couple of other physics post grads working on some things, you should come take a look.”

“Ha, well I’m not actually a student.”

“Doesn’t matter, you seem smart, besides degrees only matter if you want a job in the field, doesn’t necessarily say anything about how much you know if you care enough to learn.”

“That’s a unique perspective for a post-graduate student to have.” Fate inquires.

“Yeah well, as a black woman at an elite university in a male dominated field I’ve come to understand better than most how much harm assumptions and elitism can do, not to mention how stupid it is.”

“Fair enough,” Fate says, as he nods to the barista who slides the hot chocolate towards him on the counter, and then follows Amanda back to her table.

“Guys, this is Harry, he’s that kid still auditing ITQP.”

“Sick mate,” says the muscly guy sitting next to Amanda, “I’m Liam.”

Liam almost looks military but he’s got kind eyes, and his hair cut seems like it was once regulation but has since grown out a bit and sticks up at odd angles. He’s got tan skin, which pairs well with his gym rat looking muscles, except his hands are stained with ink, and he is wearing ratty t-shirt that reads “May the Mass Times Acceleration Be With You” Star Wars style.

“Nice to meet you, Liam.” Fate says as he reaches across the table to shake his hand.

He slides into the only seat available, next to a wiry boy with thin toned arms and a buzz cut. He is wearing a dark brown sweater pushed up to his forearms. The cool dark color of the sweater and the soft lighting makes his slightly lighter skin seem as warm as the drink in Fates cup, and he twirls a pen in his one hand as the other reached out to shake Fate’s.

“I’m Ben.”

“Harry”

Ben nodded, and then the turned to look at the paper in front of him, pointing out a particular formula to the table.

As happened with (almost) everyone Fate met, he could see their past and future as if it were laid out before him in illustration. He knew that Liam had been in the military to pay for college, but now was stanchly pacifist. This belief would eventually lead him to become an advocate for Thorium Nuclear Energy, and his advancements in this field would lead to the widespread adoption of the improved system. Ben on the other hand, was born Anita, and was currently the youngest post-graduate student at UCL. He would go on to win three Nobel prizes in physics throughout his lifetime for various developments and would raise a daughter who would be on the first space craft to leave the galaxy.

Fate wondered at the convergence of brilliant minds that had been seeking him out lately. People of world changing significance rarely come in more than pairs, and people rarely went out of their way to engage with Fate. Yet here he sat, at a table with what would become three of the brightest minds of their generation, three people who would be remembered and celebrated for achievements unrelated to the achievements of the others. He wondered at the odds, and the importance of such an odd series of events as him missing his train.

Around him, the conversation shifted to something that Fate could understand.

“Well then it all comes down to black holes.” Amanda stated, with a great degree of confidence.

“What” Liam responded, “No it doesn’t, how on earth…”

“Well no one currently knows what happens to fermions inside the event horizon of a black hole.”

“Yeah,” Liam says, “But there’s theories, I think that it makes sense that the energy density of the event horizon is great enough to convert fermions to bosons.”

He pauses and scribbles something down in his notebook,

**_e_ ** **+** **_p_ ** **→** **_n_ ** **+** **_ν_ **

**_u_ ** **+** **_d_ ** **→** **_X_ **

Ben leans over the table and analyzes the formula critically.

“But by what process does that occur, and what happens to the particles within the event horizon?”

“That’s exactly my point, Ben” Amanda exclaims, “We can’t go around assuming that they continue to collapse into nothing, that’s not how science works.”

At this point, Fate chimes in, “Well what do you propose?”

“Well, think about the idea that black holes have such strong gravity that light cannot escape, so we can’t see them, but we can see the event horizon.”

“Yes, we are all physicists, we know this.”

“I’m just setting the scene Liam.”

“Well set it faster, this is a minimalist play.”

“Well that doesn’t mean that the black hole is a void, that just means we can’t see what ever is in the void.”

“Yeah I’m a bit lost,” Ben interrupts, “You are aware that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, right? And it isn’t disputed information that the inside of a black hole is a void”

“The inside of a black hole is avoid.” Liam jokes,

“Shut up and let the adults talk,” Amanda quips, “What I’m saying, esteemed colleagues, is that perhaps something can travel faster than light, and yes, I am aware that that something would have to exist outside the fabric of space-time, but that by no means makes it impossible.”

“Well what would something existing outside space-time look like?” 

“That’s the exciting part, Harry, nobody knows.”

“Sure its exciting,” Liam postulates, “But it’s a far less reasonable explanation that conversion via energy density.”

“I think it could be possible.” Harry injects, “I mean, space is a physical thing, but time is only really measured as a mathematical function, and never on its own. The universe could exist without time, but it couldn’t exist without space. All time really represents is change.”

“Yes, and therefore a universe without time would be in a constant state of stasis.” Liam responds,

“Like a void, Liam”

“Black holes aren’t in stasis though,” Ben adds, “think about Bernstein-Hawking entropy- the entropy within black holes increases as entropy is captured by the black hole, and because there are an enormous number of internal states of gravity and matter within the black hole.”

“But think about chaos theory, Ben” Amanda says excitedly, “Increased entropy implies increased chaos, which fundamentally implies increased order, and what is order but stasis.”

“No way you can compare order to stasis, stasis means nothing is happening, order means that it is happening according to a prescribed system.”

“But that eventually comes back to the same thing happening over and over again,” says Fate, “Which doesn’t necessarily require the existence of time, besides, if something is happening according to governable laws, then something that takes place under those laws, especially if it is non-linear - as chaos theory dictates- then we have no evidence of the existence of time or change, just the rotation of states of being under the governance of space.”

“Well touché, Mr. Auditing” Ben says with cheerful mocking.

“That’s what I’m talking about,” says Amanda gleefully.

Liam grunts but says nothing in contradiction.

By this point it is well past midnight, and Liam mentions heading home for the night.

“Where do you live Harry?”

“A few stops down on the tube, I actually came in here in the first place because I missed the last one.”

“Well,” Amanda interrupts, “fate got you here so you could argue in my defense because I’m right.”

“Heh, I guess so.”

“Anyways we all live in the area, do you want me to call you an Uber?”

“Um, yeah that’d be great, I haven’t got a phone at the moment.”

“Hmm, an old-school boy ok.”

The four get up from the table and put on various discarded coats and hats and gloves before heading towards the door.

“See ya, Niall” Liam says as they leave.

The blonde barista looks up from where he appears to be setting up for the morning and nods sleepily. “See ya, Li.”

**part two.**

**[a thursday in early december]**

Niall owns and lives in the apartment above his coffee shop- The Allegory. He comes down the stairs and flicks the light on, and ponders as he wipes down the counters and starts up the espresso machine. He checks the coffee grounds, and water levels, and sets out the milk, sugar and honey for people to add to their drinks.

The Allegory not too small, but it is still cozy. There is art hung eclectically on the bare cement walls, and well-worn rugs over portions of the old hardwood floor. The front is almost entirely windows lined with two person tables and the occasional potted plant. In one corner is a coffee table surrounded by two overstuffed couches and armchairs. The back and middle are filled with tables and chairs in various shapes and arrangements. Customers tend to arrange them to their convenience, and Niall rarely sees fit to move them back.

In the very back there are a couple of bookshelves, available for public consumption, but mostly filled with books that fit Niall’s taste, about history, art, poetry, and philosophy. The shop is lit by industrial style overhead lights and various lamps. It is dark and cold enough outside still that Niall is thankful he has the good fortune of not having to commute to work.

However, as he stepped outside to flip the sign on the door to open, he almost wished he had an excuse. The snow had let up at some point in the early morning and the sky was left clear for the first time in weeks. The sun was still too low in the sky to reflect off the snow, but the growing blue of the sky slowly chased away the dark and left the city pure and bright.

The air was sharp and fresh, made every breath seem new and exciting. The morning seemed so full of peace and joy, even on the quiet street in the university neighborhood. It was early still, just past 6:30am, but even so he could see a figure in the distance cautiously making their way down the snowy sidewalks towards him. As they approach Niall raises his hand in recognition, Charita Gupta, his long-time friend and frequent customer only huffs out a response.

“I want COFFEE Niall, I didn’t come here to chitchat.”

Niall only laughs and makes his way towards the espresso machine to make her usual latte. The two have been friends since they moved to London, Niall to take over his Aunt’s coffee shop and Charita to intern at Private Eye Magazine. Since then, Charita had become a permanent fixture of The Allegory, constantly in need of the caffeine and change of scene.

She is wearing dark jeans and a purple cable knit sweater under a cream coat and black scarf. Her curly hair is pulled back in a loose bun, but some shorter curls have been dislodged by her hat and stick out around her face, so the light starting to come in through the east facing windows in the back bounce off them and light up her face. It hits her cheekbones too, making the darker skin under them enhance the way her eyes shone.

She regards him warily, “Coffee’d be good right about now Irish, I’ve got deadlines.”

Niall rests two hands on the counter and leans against it, torso angled towards her slightly, “Have ye? I’d been under the impression that all you do all day is laze about in me coffee shop.”

“You wish all I did all day was laze about in your coffee shop.”

Niall nods, and twists his face in mock contemplation. “Maybe I do, but what’s to be done about it?”

Charita laughs and shakes her head, “Give me free coffee and I’ll stay here forever.”

Niall pours espresso into a large mug and moves towards the steamer, “You clearly do not have a grasp on functional business models.”

Charita leans over the counter and pokes the blonde’s shoulder, “Perhaps not, but I have a grasp of other functional models.”

“What on earth is that supposed to mean?”

“Free coffee?”

Niall slides her mug across the counter, “That’ll be three pounds.”

“You’re a goddamn capitalist you know that?” Charita responds as she pulled out her wallet.

Niall smiles and swipes her credit card. “Anything for you, my dear.”

Charita takes the mug and takes a seat at the bar style seating that runs perpendicular to the counter. She takes off her coat and scarf and pulls out a laptop and a battered legal pad held together with a binder clip and starts typing. Niall knows better than to interrupt, and a few customers begin to trickle in, so the morning starts to take off.

Around 7:15 another familiar face walks into The Allegory. He is wearing a lined jean jacket over a grey sweater, messy hair hidden by a rather ratty burgundy beanie that matches the scarf pulled tight around his neck.

“Hey, Niall.” Louis says sleepily, “Just a coffee today would be great, for here is fine.”

Niall moves to get the coffee. “Sure thing mate, how’s it going.”

“S’all right, I’m in a bit of a slump at the moment, may have reached a dead end.”

Niall hands Louis his drink, “Nah, if I know you that means you are just one step away from a breakthrough.”

Louis smiles, and raises his mug. “Here’s hoping.”

He sits down at the bar next to Charita, who does not acknowledge his presence and continues typing madly, and sips his coffee as he stares at the counter lost in thought. Niall shakes his head at his friends before carrying on with his job.

**part three.**

An hour or so later Charita is still typing, but at much shorter intervals separated by her eying whatever is on the screen with disparaging critique. Louis is on his second cup of coffee, and has stolen a piece of paper from Charita’s legal pad that has remained virtually empty but for the formula:

**_e_ ** **+** **_p_ ** **→** **_n_ ** **+** **_ν_ **

**_u_ ** **+** **_d_ ** **→** **_X_ **

and a few scribbles crossed out vigorously. He taps his pen absentmindedly on his temple as he stares into space. Niall sticks his tongue out at him, but Louis does not appear to notice.

The door to the coffee shop opens and Amanda Tate walks in with all her usual energy. She wears a bright red vintage parka over well-worn mom jeans, her hair is covered by a warm looking patterned fabric tied in a knot at the back of her head.

“Niall, guess what? I’m back!” She calls, and orders a large mocha to-go. As she waits for her coffee she observes Louis still gazing absently at the space in front of him, taping his pen rhythmically.

She walks to the bar and cocks her head, “Hey Houston, we have a problem!”

Louis starts, and looks at her confusedly, “Sorry, what?”

“Well you know you had the whole space cadet thing going on.” She gestures to him vaguely.

Louis furrows his brow.

“Never mind, what’s up” Amanda asks, tilting her head to examine the nearly empty paper in front of him.

“Um, not much just working on some theor-”

Amanda interrupts, “is this a formula for boson conversion inside a singularity?”

Louis looks startled, “Well it’s a start, has got a few holes.”

Amanda continues on, unperturbed. “Me and the lads were just talking about this yesterday. Well, we were more debating its significance, but Harry and I started thinking about whether the existence of time as a level of analysis is actually that relevant, which of course would open up possibilities for the fate of fermions within black holes, as it would mean that light speed is not a definite limit.”

At this Louis perked up. “That’s an interesting angle, hadn’t thought about that.” He considered a moment, “Actually, I don’t think anyone’s thought about that.”

“You should meet up with us sometime, we like to come here some nights and debate theoretics.”

“Sound like a blast, who’re the lads?”

“It’s usually Liam, Ben and I, but I’m trying to get Harry to join in as well. He doesn’t think like a physicist, it’s refreshing.”

Louis nods in contemplation, “Ben is the physics wonder boy, right? I don’t think I know Harry or Liam.”

Amanda laughs, “You met Harry a week ago, but come round sometime and you can meet the rest.”

“Hmm, if I’m ever in the area.”

“A rare occurrence indeed,” Amanda replies, “A professor near a university.”

By this point Charita has apparently finished her work and shut her laptop, as she turns to the two physicists and injects, “I hope you aren’t flirting with our boy here,” to which Niall overhears and laughs, “Because he is interested in approximately no people ever so you are probably wasting your time.”

Louis groans and slaps his hand over his forehead, turning to Charita, “Is nothing sacred aymore?”

To her credit, Amanda just laughs at the joke. “Nah, he’s not really my type. Besides, getting involved with a professor is messy business, even as a post-grad.”

“Oooh” Charita responds, “But think of the drama.”

Amanda appears to consider it, “True enough, now I think about my life has been a bit monotonous lately, perhaps I do need a secret affair, what do you say Louis?”

Louis makes a sound eerily reminiscent of a dying goose, “You’ll have to look somewhere else my dear, I really haven’t the time.”

Amanda mocks disappointment, “Well enough, but they say you miss one hundred percent of the shots you don’t take.”

Charita snorts, and holds out her hand to the other girl. “Charita Gupta, nice to meet you.”

Amanda shakes her hand. “Amanda Tate, likewise, are you a physicist also?”

Charita shakes her head, “Nah, I work for Private Eye.”

Amanda’s eyes widen, “Are you an investigative journalist, that’s amazing.”

The other girl shrugs, “I’m trying to be, but currently I mostly write smaller pieces and satire.”

“Impressive nonetheless.”

Charita nods humbly. “Thank you.”

**part four.**

**[a monday in mid-early december]**

_Fate walked south on an unimportant London street. There was still snow on the ground from the storm the week before, and it was shaping up to be an unusually cold December. He pulled his coat tighter around his body as headed to the next place on his list, consigned to continue maintaining the predetermined version of events. His tasks today were simple and required minimal effort on his part, so he had plenty of time to think about the secrets of a universe._

_He positioned himself in front of a woman waiting for a bus, discouraging a man who she would otherwise drive mad for love of her from ever meeting her at all. Fate wondered what would happen if he did go mad. Maybe he goes mad anyways, it is said that true madness lies within._

_But Fate will never know. For everything he knows is confined to what has been and what will be. There are no alternative truths, or make your own endings. From Fate’s perspective, the universe is but a preordained series of events that are eternally pushing each other forward._

_The universe is just change, disasters and epics existing for no reason but to prove the existence of time. To prove that everything has a purpose, that the human race is working towards something. Without it, each day is the same, and people trap themselves in cycles of hate and boredom and greed for no reason at all. Without time all sense of structure and all sense of meaning in the universe fall apart. What does it mean to be here without the now? Fate does not know._

_When the bus pulls away from the station Fate consults his book. Margret Greenwood, it says, is to live another day. Fate knows Margret Greenwood then, as he knows everyone whose path he has crossed, or ever will cross. She works in a bakery, has three kids. She is currently walking east on a street two blocks from Fate. He turns and walks her way quickly, pushes past pedestrians on the sidewalk to get there in time. Fate does not run, but he knows he cannot miss this._

_Finally, a few yards ahead of him he sees the youngish woman. A child that is not hers drops a rubber ball in the street and bursts into tears. Margret notices the ball and runs after it, just a foot or so into the street. Fate looks around as her hurries towards her, he had thought there would be something coming. Still, he moves to get her out of the street, steps to where she is and places a hand on her shoulder as unobtrusively as possible to prompt her to get back to the sidewalk._

_A few seconds too late Fate notices a truck driving just a little too fast down the icy street. He feels oddly calm, as though time has slowed down as he comes to realize that Fate himself has never been directly in harms way. The truck skids on the ice, and the tires visibly lose their traction, but he cannot seem to move out of the way. Fate wonders if he can die. No sooner does this thought cross his mind then he feels a warm hand stretch around his waist and pull him forcefully from where he stands. Fate hits the sidewalk hard, and feels dull pain flood into his back and shoulder. There is a heavy weight on top of him, and heavy breathing. Fate looks up, into the eyes of the physics professor he had met a few weeks ago, the one who’s life he could not see. He thought of the way black holes warp space time so that they cannot be seen until an object is pulled into their gravitational field and cannot escape._

Louis bracketed his hands briefly around the face of the man he had pulled from the street. The truck had been moving fast, to fast, and Louis knew enough to realize that while the stationary man in the street would not have been able to summon the force to get himself out of harms way in time, Louis, who had been moving quite quickly down the street needed less force, and therefore less time, to pull the man away.

But less force or not his heart pounded in his ears and it took him a few seconds to realize where he was. On top of a man who was looking up at him with a kind of curious intensity that made Louis feel entirely too visible. He pushed himself away from the man and rolled onto the sidewalk next to him, taking stock of the sting of the skin of his hands and the throbbing of his knees.

“You’re alright, yeah?” Louis says as he turns to the man lying on the ground next to him.

“Fine enough.” says the man.

The woman he had guided out of the way seems relieved to hear this, and she thanks him, and gives a little kid a ball.

The man speaks again, “Um, thanks, by the way, for the rescue.” He laughs nervously. “We’ve met before, I think. You were having a conversation with Professor Malik about working in the opposite direction of science or something.”

Louis looks startled. “Oh,” he pauses, “Are you Harry?”

“Um, yeah, surprised you remember.”

To his credit, Louis looks surprised as well, but he waves his hand as he gets to his feet, and offers Fate a hand to help him up. Fate looks at it dubiously for a moment, but takes it and staggers to his feet. 

“I was actually heading over to The Allegory just now, and I was talking to Amanda Tate the other day and she mentioned that some of you meet there sometimes and talk about physics and such. She also said that you’d had an interesting theory about the importance of time that I’d rather like to hear more about.”

Fate shuffles his feet a bit and looks at Louis. “Um, well I’ve actually only met them once, and it was almost certainly by accident.”

“Nahh,” Louis waves his hand in front of his face and smirks, “No accidents.”

“If you say so.” Fate responds. He supposes he is right, in a way.

“Well,” Louis continues, “I was sort of wondering if you would like to come along with me then? Talk some more about relativity and space-time and the like.”

“Umm,” Fate pauses and pulls out his book to check the rest of the day. Louis looks at it curiously as Fate opens to the book-marked page. Three more errands, oh well.

“Are those Cretan hieroglyphs?” Louis asks, almost to himself, almost as if he doesn’t believe it.

Fate snaps his book shut, suddenly alarmed. He doesn’t ever worry about people seeing inside his book, because it just looks like scribbles. The existence of Cretan hieroglyphs is known he supposes, but not at all deciphered, and it is extremely unusual that a physics professor would be able to recognize Cretan hieroglyphs at a glance. There are plenty of hieroglyphs, and they all look more or less the same to a person who doesn’t understand them. Fate cannot comprehend for the life of him how he would have immediately guessed the right one. Why not Linear A, a similar language system the was only a little younger than Cretan hieroglyphs and originated in the same place? Hell, why not Egyptian hieroglyphs? Isn’t that the default hieroglyph?

“No!” Fate exclaims after a second or two too long.

Louis furrows his brows at him, still in a mild state of shock. “Well it looked like Cretan hieroglyphs! Why are you writing in hieroglyphs anyways? That’s a long dead language.”

Fate bristles defensively, “Well why do you know what Cretan hieroglyphs look like so well.”

Louis inhales angrily, and realizes he has slipped up. “I..”

Fate raises his eyebrows.

Louis collects himself and then, in a tone as sarcastic, light, and menial as he could possibly manage with his heart racing as much as it is, responds; “I was born in Athens in 456 BC and have been continually re-born as the same person after I die ever since. So,” He pauses for dramatic effect, “I may have picked up a little Cretan along the way. Why do you have hieroglyphs in your agenda?”

Fate seems taken aback. He gapes a moment and then, in an equally sarcastic tone, says “ I came into existence somewhere in the fourth millennium B.C as the physical embodiment as what humans call fate, and I have been making miniscule adjustments that impact the course of human history ever since.”

Louis nods his head curtly, “That’s impressive.”

“I’m joking, obviously.” Is Fates response.

“Me too, obviously.” Louis regards him a moment. “So. About the physics?”

Fate inhales, and tries to respond as smoothly as possible, to make it sound as though he hadn’t just been more honest than he’d ever been, hadn’t bared his soul completely. “I’ve got a few more things on the agenda, how late’ll you be there?”

“Dunno,” Louis responds, as calm as ever. “Late.”

“Right,” Fate licks his lips anxiously, “Maybe I’ll swing by.”

Louis nods, and tilts the corners of his lips up in a smile so minutely that Fate wouldn’t have noticed had his body not been flooded with adrenaline, senses on full alert. “Maybe I’ll see you.” Is all he says before he turns and walks away from Fate, bloodied hands shoved in his back pockets.

Fate stands still for a second, watching him, before the flow of foot traffic jostles him back to reality and he makes towards his next destination.

His mind whirls, for as honest as he was, Louis joking response to his question did not explain why Louis could recognize Cretan hieroglyphs, or why Fate didn’t know him. Well it did, he supposed, but it certainly wasn’t true, which only left more questions than answers.

**part five.**

Fate stumbled into The Allegory at around 8pm. It was crowded, unlike when he’d been there last, but he could recognize Amanda and Ben where they sat facing the front of the shop from the same table they had sat at the last time.

Fate ordered a hot green tea from the barista at the counter he didn’t recognize, and made his way to the back of the room.

Amanda smiled widely when she noticed him approach. “Harry! Louis mentioned you might swing by, how was work?”

Fate grinned at her, “It was alright, work you know?” he said as he pulled a chair up to the end of the table.

“What is it you do?” Louis asked pointedly.

Fate gestured vaguely, “Um, this and that, you know, around.” As he sat down.

Louis squinted at him, but the other three at the table laughed and Amanda clapped her hands together and said, “Right, physics.”

Louis smiled widely, “My favorite subject.”

“I was thinking that now we’ve got another opinion we should go back to that crackhead time theory ‘manda and Harry were going on about the other day.” Ben said.

“Yes we should,” replies Louis, “Amanda was telling me it had something to do with eliminating time as a constant variable?”

Amanda nods, and proceeds to explain to Louis what they had discussed the week previous, as Fate interjects to support her, and Liam and Ben voice their reservations at relevant intervals.

**part six.**

**[wednesday]**

Louis is going out of his mind. For a moment there he could excuse the idea that maybe there was a logical reason for Harry to have a notebook full of Cretan hieroglyphs but the more the conversation played in his head the more certain he became that those were definitely Cretan hieroglyphs- because while he hadn’t had occasion for them in two thousand years or so, Louis rarely forgot a language, he was also sure that he could, to some extent make out a word that could roughly be translated to ‘lover’ or perhaps ‘they-who-consume-me’ depending on context and not necessarily one and the same. ~~~~

Unfortunately, the notebook was not the only unknown Louis was dealing with. He sat in his office and stared at the formulas on the black board. As far as he could tell, mathematically the universe could hold together without the existence of time. The implications of this were massive, not only for science but also for himself. For instance, if time was not a factor in the way the universe played out, then Louis was simply a cycle that continued to repeat unchanged while the world changed around him.

It was almost too simple, but his head hurt from thinking about it. Time was such a prevalent assumption because it made the world make sense. If time did not exist, then why did things change so much and so constantly? If forces of change were not eternal, then eventually would the universe decay to repeated cycles, and things stay the same forever? Was Louis and example of that decay?

The physicist massaged his forehead and moved to the window. He leaned against the sill and looked out onto the people walking down below, rushing onward to their next destination, fighting a clock that wasn’t really ticking. Did they know that it was all in their head? If they did would anything change?

The sun would still rise and set, Louis supposed, the days would get longer and shorter with the seasons. Life would still end, people would still grow old. The clock that sat above the door in his office ticked loudly. Louis had never thought about it before, an eternal metronome keeping beat of his life, making sure he stayed on pace. The clock dictated change, maybe things change because we feel they are supposed to.

But clocks fall out of rhythm eventually. Their battery dies and they stop ticking, or the pendulum slows down, until it stops and all that is left is a relic of what things used to be. Change that is eternal and finite simultaneously.

Louis thought about the universe speeding up from the moment of its origin. Eventually everything might be too far apart to separate anymore. Stars would collapse, planets would find new orbits, and the universe would sit in stasis until it was all swallowed by one supermassive black hole.

What would happen then? Is that the end of all things or is it the beginning of something more? Do we simply fall through one layer of space to another, or is this all there is? The ticking of the clock beat drums against Louis skull. His hands trembled till he could stand it no more and he crossed the room, pulled the clock down from the wall and ripped the batteries out.

No more metronome for Louis. He had nothing to be late to, not really.

Cleopatra by The Lumineers started playing in his head as he sunk down to the floor and rested his head on the wall below the window.

“But I was late for this, late for that, late for the love of my life.

And when I die alone, when I die alone, when I die I'll be on time”. ~~~~

The stupor drags his mind back to Harry. Languages die when no one is around to speak them. The language of ancient Crete could not be revived by those who had never heard it, and not enough had been discovered to recreate any semblance of a complete codex.

Time as humans understand it had carried on and dragged that language under the mud. But time wasn’t truly there. Human death and decay are what left Cretan behind. So why did Harry know it? Irrationally, Louis though about Harrys response to his own honest excuse, and how the existence of a being that existed solely for the purpose of pushing life onward would actually solve several of his dilemmas.

The physicist part of his brain scoffed, but he had been around for two millennia, who was he to disregard what seemed impossible.

**part seven.**

**[thursday]**

Louis checked the clock to make sure that he would get to the lecture hall right as ITQP was letting out. He needed to talk to Amanda and Harry about the mathematics he had done on their theory.

It was snowing again, and Louis had left his coat in his office across campus in his hurry, so his hands and lips were numb as he made his way thorough the heated hallways. He was a little late, but fate was on his side apparently, as he saw Harry and Amanda walking quite slowly away from him, heads bent in discussion.

“Hey! Amanda, Harry!” Louis exclaimed as he rushed to catch up to them; his lungs strained from the cold.

They turned around quickly, and a smile crossed Amanda’s face just as fast.

“Hey Louis, long time no see.” She quipped. They had seen each other on Monday.

Harry remained silent and looked at Louis a bit apprehensively.

“Long time indeed,” Louis said, “But I’ve been doing some work on the stuff we talked about on Monday, did some calculations and the like, wondered if you’d like to take a look.”

“I absolutely fucking would!” Amanda replied, “Haven’t got anything planned the rest of the day.” She turned to the man standing next to her. “Harry?”

Fate looked at Louis, and then reached to his coat pocket and pulled out the notebook, which he opened quickly at an angle away from Louis and Amanda. When he looked up Louis was looking at him passively, but with a fire in his eyes that made Fate feel as though he should be melting into a puddle of contradictions that Louis in all his brilliance would be able to see as the truth. Fate wondered what would happen if he did.

“Looks like I’m free.” He said instead.

“Fantastic,” Louis responded, and then turned on his heel. “I’ve got hot tea in my office, let’s hurry before the snow gets any worse.”

Amanda looked at him critically, “haven’t you got a coat?”

Louis huffs, “I forgot it in my office.”

She laughs at him, “Brilliant scientist you are then.”

“I like to think so,” Louis says as he steps out the doors and is hit by a gust of icy wind and snow. “Fuck, hurry”

The three start across campus, leaning against the wind, Louis shivering violently.

“Would you like my coat?” Fate asks off handedly, though he had been thinking about it more than necessary.

Louis gives him a sideways glance, “Nah, then you’ll just be cold too, and you look like the type of person who doesn’t do well in the cold.” But his teeth chatter together as he speaks, and he shivers so violently that his words are barely heard.

Fate pulls of his coat and puts it around Louis shoulders anyways. Louis glares at the man but pulls it tighter around himself. Amanda just laughs as the three push through the snow and approach the physics department, where the heat is on full blast though most of the department members have taken their work home to avoid traveling in the ever-worsening weather. None of the three who are shaking off their boots and coats in the foyer have that kind of foresight.

As they enter Louis’ office, he throws Fate’s coat over is desk chair absently as Fate makes a bee line towards a tiny space heater in one corner to stop shivering.

Louis laughs at him, and goes to fill the kettle up with water and grab two extra mugs and milk. Meanwhile Amanda turns her focus to the black board where Louis has laid out his formulas. The mathematics is simpler than what could be expected, as it has simply eliminated change as a constant and proved that the universe would continue to function in more or less the same way without time as a factor. She works the proof through in her mind, there are no flaws she can see, just more questions. 

Louis returns and flicks on the kettle before cataloging the emotion on Amanda’s face as she examines his work. Harry is looking at it to, but Louis doesn’t know if he has the mathematical prowess to understand what it means.

“What do you think?” He says, as he addresses the two.

“I don’t know what to think,” Amanda responds, “I don’t think I realized what it would mean if we were right.”

“I know.” Louis says quietly.

For a second no one moves, until the whistle of boiling water grows louder than the noise in their heads. So Louis fixes them tea, while Fate drags the space heater to be nearer the others, and sinks down on the floor under the window. Amanda sits in the armchair, and pulls her knees up to her chest while she leans into the upholstery. Louis has never seen her look so small.

He sits on his desk and sips his tea. He does not look at the board like the other two, for he knows what it says. Instead he stares out the window and watches the snow build in the gathering dusk. The light in his office is yellow and warm and for a second he feels calmer than he has in weeks.

Fate breaks the silence softly, “It means that time isn’t necessary right?”

“It means change isn’t necessary.” Louis says in response.

“But if change isn’t necessary, why does it happen?” Amanda says, more to herself than anyone else. “Like everything, living things, non-living things, are in a constant state of change, and nothing happens twice, but according to this that shouldn’t be the case. The universe should be falling into increasingly cyclical patterns until it eventually reached stasis.”

“Is it really change, though,” Louis says, “or is it decay?”

“Are they so different?” Amanda rebuts, “What then drives the decay?”

“The laws of physics,” Louis responds, “The push and pull of physical factors would still impact matter, they just aren’t carried on by any constant forward moving force.”

“But we still should be noticing loops occur in the fabric of space, especially on small scales.” Amanda continues, “Why haven’t we.”

“Maybe we have.” Is all Louis can say in response.

Fate is silent, his mind a whirl with implications. Is it possible that he is the reason for the lack of the cyclical patterns Amanda suggests? Perhaps his role in the universe is not to be the force carrying out the predetermined futures of peoples lives, but the force preventing people from doing the same things over and over again?

He looks up at Louis, who sat with his hands tucked under his thighs, legs swinging slightly against the desk. Fate- or who ever he is- could accept that perhaps the man had simply slipped under the radar in the grand scheme of whatever was doing the determining; but the implications that Louis was outside the realm of change was so much worse, so much bigger. He wondered if Louis knew the precipice on which he stood.

The silence in the cluttered room stretched on, each of its occupants to caught up in their own thoughts to notice that the while the sun had long since set the snow outside was so heavy that outside still appeared light where lamp in the office shone out the window and reflected off the falling flakes.

It was Amanda who became concerned first. “Hey Louis, have you got a clock in here? It looks like it’s getting pretty late and the snow is coming down hard.”

Louis looks to where the clock lies face down near the door. “Um, no?”

No one comments on the state of the clock, they all understand it, and Amanda steps out into the hallway to check. “Damn,” She says, “It’s ten thirty.”

At this Harry shoots up to stand, “Fuck, I’ve missed my train”, then turns to examine the outside world. “No way anyone is driving in this.”

Louis nods, but seems slightly less perturbed. “I have as well, I’m around Edgware Road, but I’ve crashed here more times than I care to count, it’s alright if you need to.”

Fate looks at the tiny office highly critically, before Amanda jumps in. “Nonsense, you can’t go sleeping on the floor. My flat is just two blocks away, I’ve got a couch and way more blankets than anyone would deem necessary.”

Fate nods with relief, “I’d appreciate it, if it isn’t an imposition.”

“Of course not,” Amanda replies, “I wouldn’t have offered if it was. You too Louis, who knows if campus will be open tomorrow, I wouldn’t want you stranded here all by yourself.”

Louis looks apprehensive but moves to put his coat and gloves on with the rest of them, and flips the light off and locks the door to his office before heading out into the darkened hallway.

As they approach the exit, the severity of the storm becomes palpable and Amanda laughs nervously. “Its only two blocks, yeah”.

Outside the wind pushes against them, and snow sticks to their faces before being pushed off again, leaving behind a little bit of moisture that freezes on the face. It is eerily quiet except for the wind, and they can barely see a few feet in front of them. Nevertheless, they trudge on as the cold slips under their coats, and their freezing faces become numb to the ice.

By the time they approach Amanda’s building Louis’ lungs hurt from inhaling the frozen air, and his fingers are stiff under his gloves. She fumbles with her keys as she unlocks the front door and they crowd inside to follow Amanda up the stairs to her flat on the sixth floor.

Inside there is a kitchen space and living area that connect to a hallway with two bedrooms and a bathroom. There are fairy lights strung up, and colorful tapestries pinned to the walls. Pushed against one wall is an overstuffed couch and armchair that had seen better days. The floor is covered in rugs. Sitting on one of the kitchen counters is a familiar figure- Ben.

“Hey guys,” he says, as he eats a yogurt. “I didn’t realize we’d be having company?”

Amanda nods at him and begins hanging her warm layers on hooks near the door. “Wasn’t planning on it but we got caught up working on the time thing in Louis office and both of them missed the tube home. Besides, the air is more snow than oxygen right now, I think.”

“Yeah,” Harry intercedes, “We appreciate the offer, hope it isn’t inconvenient.”

“Course not,” is Ben's response, “mi casa es su casa” and then snorts to himself.

“Do you guys want something to eat?” Amanda asks, “I’m sure we can scrounge up something edible.

“I can cook if you want?” Harry says. “I’m pretty good if I do say so myself.”

Amanda shrugs, “If you want, I’m not about to turn that down.”

Fate heads to the kitchen and starts opening cabinets and the fridge, pulling out assorted ingredients and laying them on the counter. Amanda and Ben have moved to the couch, and Louis can overhear them discussing the theory. Eager take a break from the budding existential crisis his own work had thrown him into, he approaches Harry in the kitchen.

“Need any help?”

Harry glances up at him, “Can you cook?”

Louis scoffs, and examines the ingredients arranged on the counter. “Do you think so little of me? I thought I told you, I’ve been around a few thousand years- I think I’ve had time to work out how to chop vegetables.”

Harry laughs, “Right, you Athenian then? Why don’t you deal with the spinach and mushrooms?”

Louis nods and moves to prep the vegetables, “Indeed.”

Harry pours water into a pot and sets the heat to high on the stove. He thinks about what was happening around the time Louis claims he was born. “Did you fight in Gythion then?”

Louis raises his eyebrows as he chops the spinach. “You think you know your history yeah?”

“I know I do.”

Louis wobbles his head, “I was less than a year old then, don’t see how I could’ve”

“Hmm,” Harry says, “you’re good, what about in Egypt?”

“Still too young, but my father did.”

Harry remembered the Persian defeat of the Athenians in Egypt, he had been indirectly responsible for it. He looked at Louis passively. Louis tilted his chin up towards him.

“He didn’t come back.”

“I’m sorry.” Harry replies, without emotion. This conversation has taken a serious turn for sarcastic banter, and he doesn’t know what to make of it.

Louis just quirks his eyebrow. “The water under that bridge is long dry, my friend.”

He pours the vegetables into a well-oiled pan and turns on the heat. “What about you?”

Harry looks down at the pasta. “What about me?”

“You know,” Louis says, “Mister fourth millennium B.C fate of the universe in your hands.”

Harry looks up at him and smiles cheekily. “Oh yeah, that.” He pauses for dramatic effect as he leans back against the countertop. “What about it.”

Louis moves to stand in front of Harry and leans forward enough that their noses are only a few inches apart and squints his eyes at him. “Hieroglyphs.” He whispers into Harry's face.

Harry slides away from him and moves to drain the pasta and turn of the heat on the veggies. Louis whirls around to watch him. “What hieroglyphs?” Harry says lightly and shrugs. “I certainly don’t know any hieroglyphs.”

Louis does nothing but lean against the counter with his arms crossed over his chest as he watches Harry mix the pasta and vegetables into the pan, then add milk and cheese and a little flour for thickness. He stirs the mixture intensely, before ruffling through the cabinets again to until he finds salt and paprika.

“Mhm,” Says the other boy, “Of course you don’t.”

Harry makes no move to continue the conversation, and instead calls Amanda and Ben over to the kitchen where they grab plates and silverware, and he divvies the pseudo-alfredo among the four plates.

The flat mates motion them to sit on the couch, so they all gather round to eat. The four enjoy the silence for a few moments, and Louis watches the snow as it piles up in on the windowsill he can see from where he sits. Amanda turns the conversation to some television show she, Harry, and Ben had all seen lately, but Louis just relishes the feeling of not feeling so alone.

By the time they finish eating and have washed the dishes midnight has come and gone, so Ben excuses himself to bed as Amanda starts ruffling through various rooms collecting what truly is a massive amount of blankets and pillows.

“Don’t ask,” is her response when the other two raise their eyebrows in amusement. “I know we only have one couch but I figure between that, the rugs, and the blankets you both should be able to get a decent night sleep.”

With that she deposits a final knitted quilt on the pile that she has collected near the couch, and wishes them goodnight as she heads down the narrow hallway.

Louis and Harry stand uncomfortably in the room for a second before Louis says, “So, floor or couch?”

Harry shifts under himself. “Um, I figure I might be too tall to be comfortable on the couch, so I’ll take the floor.”

Louis makes an affronted sound but moves to take a few suitable blankets from the pile for himself. “I resent the implications of that.”

Harry sets to work arranging the remaining bedding on the thickest rug he can find before responding, “Well, I’ve had an extra four thousand years or so to grow, so you can chalk it up to that if you like.”

“Hold up,” Louis says as he slips off his shoes and socks and then after a moments pause his trousers, “If you weren’t born but just came into an existence, were you ever a kid or have you always been a twenty something muscular adult with perfect hair?”

Harry cocks his head as though in deep thought, “Well, I don’t always have perfect hair, but otherwise I suppose yes.”

Louis analyses the other man from where he lays nestled in blankets on the couch.

Harry crosses the room to flip off the light, but he is still visible in the eternal twilight of the snow through the window as he takes of his shirt and trousers.

Louis laughs to himself and Harry looks up. “Have you always had the tattoos then?”

Harry scrunches his nose and lowers himself the floor to get between the layers of blankets. “No, those are more recent.”

Louis props his head up with is arm and angles his face towards Harry. “How recent?”

“I started in the sixties.”

“Were you a hippie?”

“Of course, were you?”

“Duh”

Harry squirms under the blankets. “You comfortable?” Louis asks.

“Well I can say that I’ve slept in worse for longer so I’m comfortable enough.”

Louis hums under his breath before silence fills the room and they both drift off to sleep.

**part eight.**

**[friday]**

The next morning Louis is awoken to a call from Niall asking if campus was open and if he ought to bother opening The Allegory today. Louis scrolled through his email quickly to determine that campus was not in fact open as a result of the fact that that it had snowed a record amount for this time of year the night before, and appeared still to be snowing. He informed his friend as such.

It was early still, so Louis peeked out the window of the flat that faced downtown London. From what he could see the whole city appeared to be shut down, blanketed in a thick white. It wasn’t snowing as much as it had the night before, but the sky was grey and little flakes made the horizon look fuzzy in the distance.

He shuffled to the kitchen in the early morning light, looking for caffeine of any variety. All he could find was a moka pot- one of the classy Italian ones, so he set about filling the bottom with water and the middle with coffee grounds and setting it to brew on the stove top. 

The gurgle of the coffee being pushed into the upper chamber woke Harry from where he was sprawled in blankets on the floor. He sat up, torso bare and blinked blearily.

“Coffee?” he said hopefully.

Louis laughed at him and nodded, then poured the contents of the pot into two mugs and handed one to Harry before repositioning himself in blankets on the couch.

Harry stood up and set his mug on the coffee table, and then grabbed his big heap of blankets and motioned for Louis to scoot over on the couch. Louis hummed discontent but did it anyways, so they were both sat on opposite ends of the couch bundled into many blankets, sipping coffee in silence.

The day did not appear to be going anywhere, and Amanda and Ben did not appear to be getting up, so Louis untangled himself from the blankets and walked over to the bookshelf near the entrance to the hallway.

The collection was decent, mostly classics and more recent publications, so Louis selected one a book for himself, and one he thought Harry might like before burrowing back in the blankets.

Harry looked at the title he was handed, _A Picture of Dorian Grey_.

“I’ve read this before.”

Louis looked up over the cover of his own novel _The Secret History_. “As you should’ve- you’re an old man, it’s a classic.” He paused, “You can get another book if you want you know, I just figure you can never go wrong with some good old-fashioned hedonism and homoerotic subtext.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Harry says before they both settle into their novels. As they read, they shift to get more comfortable on the couch until their legs are tangled together in the middle. Neither men of the appear to notice, and if they do they don’t acknowledge it, too caught up in their respective plots to notice.

The sky outside grows brighter as the sun rises, until eventually Ben emerges from the hallway sleepily and sets about making his own cup of coffee. It isn’t until he is holding his mug in his hands that he acknowledges the people on the couch.

“Good morning,” he says with a laugh, “You two look comfy.”

Louis looks up at him, and then at Harry and takes in their position for the first time. “Yes, we are thanks, are you jealous?” he jokes.

Ben sits down in the opposite armchair and regards them for a second. “I’m alright thanks.”

“Oh, I wasn’t inviting you to join us,” Louis responds, “Just wanted to know if you were jealous.”

Harry doesn’t look up from his book. “He can join us if he wants Louis,” he says jauntily, “The more the merrier.”

By this point it was late enough in the morning that Amanda shuffled out from her room, dressed in ratty pajamas, and rubbing sleep from her eyes. She comes to stand in the doorway between the hallway and the living room and regards the scene in front of her for a moment, before plucking Ben’s coffee out of his hands and motioning for Louis to scoot over so she could sit on the couch.

“Why do I have to move?” Louis complains, but shifts to the middle of the couch anyways.

“Because,” Amanda notes as she settles in and steals several of the blankets Louis has wrapped around himself, “You have the shortest legs and therefore do not require the corner to angle yourself in to sit comfortably.”

Louis scoffs, but looks around to observe how both Harry and Amanda are sitting with their legs bent slightly in towards him, while his are simply folded into his chest. “No need to be rude.”

Amanda wiggles her legs in more to his space, forcing him to lean up against Harry. “Is it rude?” she muses, “or just a valid observation of physical events.”

“That’s a fair point,” Harry interjects, “Is it rude to say that helium has two electrons? I think not.”

“Is that supposed to be an insult?” Louis responds, “I’ll have you know that helium is my favorite element. Think about it, Noble, and has no viscosity close to zero kelvin- there is no better description of me.”

Ben snorts and tilts his head up to the ceiling as he cackles, Amanda brings her hand up to her mouth as she nearly spits out her coffee, and Louis can feel Harry shake as dissolve into a fit of silent giggles where he leans against his body.

Their laughter makes Louis smile as he settles into his place on the couch.

“You’ve got no viscosity close to zero kelvin?” Ben says humorously.

Louis nods seriously. “I mean, might do, I’ve never tested it.”

Amanda just shakes her head, “Anybody want breakfast, I think we’ve got enough coco puffs to go around.”

Harry groans and sinks back into the couch, which tilts Louis off balance as he slumps into him. “Only if I don’t have to get up.”

Ben regards the two in amusement. “Comfortable?”

The two men nod, and Amanda sets about making bowls of cereal that they enjoy, and then the four spend the rest of the day lazing around cuddled up under blankets, listening to Christmas music and reading books as the snow continues to fall outside. 

****


End file.
